After its best performance of the season at the City Section preliminaries, the Palisades High boys’ varsity cross country team did not have a higher gear to shift to Saturday in the finals. The Dolphins finished last out of 11 teams with 232 points, seven behind 10th place Belmont. Their average time of 17:30 was well behind their qualifying pace at Pierce College in Woodland Hills. “They really hit their peak at the prelims,” PaliHi Coach Ron Brumel said. “Our top six guys all went under 18 minutes. Today, we only had four do that.” Sophomore Carlos Bustamante, who ran a personal-best 16:09 in the prelims, was once again the Dolphins’ first scorer, finishing 29th in 16:40. Junior Michael Fujimoto finished 37th in 16:54. Senior Marco Tringali was 61st in 17:41, junior Oliver Gard-Murray was 63rd in 17:48, junior Tom Sullivan was 76th in 18:29 and senior Mohaned Elias was the Dolphins’ last scorer in 18:59, well off his personal-best 16:40 at the prelims. Junior Garth Elson finished 82nd in 20:27. Jared Long of El Camino Real won the individual title in 15:39 and Birmingham won the team championship with 47 points, followed by San Pedro (68), Granada Hills (124), Monroe (129), El Camino Real (136), Reseda (151), Taft (170), Bravo Medical (170), Narbonne (221) and Belmont (225). Palisades’ girls varsity did not qualify for City finals, which was won by Reseda.
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